Please remain standing for the reading of God's holy word. Our New Testament lesson comes from Paul's letter to the Philippians chapter four. Philippians chapter four, we'll begin reading in verse one. Therefore, my beloved and longed for brethren, my joy, and my crown. So stand fast in the Lord, beloved. I implore you Odia, and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, Rejoice, let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God in the peace of God. which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. This is the word of the Lord. Turn now to our Old Testament lesson in sermon text. Turning once again one final time to Isaiah 9-6, and tonight we'll read verses six and seven. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God. everlasting father, prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. May the Lord bless the reading and proclamation of his holy words for our good and his glory. Amen. You may be seated. Over the month of December and now going into January, we have considered these five special titles of our Lord Jesus. Five messianic titles of which E.J. Young said, they are a healing balm in which the Christian soul will find comfort and strength throughout time and eternity. Comfort and strength. And who doesn't need more comfort, more strength, and more encouragement? Those, for instance, who've lost possessions, homes, and loved ones in the LA fires. Those who are still suffering under the consequences of Hurricane Milton and Helene. So many devastating tragedies we could enumerate. The world is crying out for comfort. and strength. And that's why we've spent five weeks on this one verse, because these titles are worth pausing and meditating on. And if that's true of all the titles, they communicate comfort and strength, it's especially true of this last one. And his name shall be called the Prince of peace. This title is particularly comforting and strengthening that in a world of war and violence, whether in Ukraine or in Israel or wherever, in a world of conflict and alienation Jesus is Sar Shalom. He is Prince of Peace. And it is interesting as we come to the end of this list of titles, it ends with peace. In this way, it mirrors the Aaronic benediction, the final word is peace. We're gonna approach this title, Prince of Peace, with three questions this evening. First, Why do you need peace? Second, what kind of peace does Jesus bring? And third, how is Christ the Prince of Peace? First, why do you need peace? Congregation of the Lord, you need peace because by nature, given the fall of Adam, we are at war. By nature, given the fall of Adam, we are at war with God, we're at war with one another, and we're at war even with ourselves. We're alienated from God, we're alienated from the world, and in some strange way, we're also alienated from ourselves. I don't have to prove this to you. Turn on the news. You can walk down the street. You can look at your life and what you will find is conflict, alienation, war, violence, and bloodshed. Now, why is it like this? Why is the world at war? Well, James 4 tells us an answer to the question, where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and you do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Congregation, the world is at war and the root issue The bedrock reason is sin, is that we find ourselves in the world at large in a state of sin and misery. Everyone's a sinner, all fall short of the glory of God, and so everyone needs peace. Yes, but you say, every solution I've ever come across has failed. World War I was called the war to end all wars. And what happened just a couple decades later? We have World War II, not particularly successful at ending wars. You have various politicians' agenda to make the world safe for democracy. You have the liberal post-war consensus that developed after the Second World War, where the rallying cry was never again. Never again will we let this kind of thing happen, and then we come to today, where we are, if anything, more polarized and more divided than ever. And that leads us to a second question, not simply why do you need peace, that's obvious, but what kind of peace does Christ bring? If every solution seems to have failed, what does Jesus have to offer? Let's consider the peace of Christ. First thing to notice about it is that Christ's peace is primarily spiritual, not temporal. It's primarily spiritual. And here we need to distinguish sharply between worldly peace and Christian peace. They're not the same thing. Worldly peace sweeps sin under the rug and it puts a Band-Aid over the wound. And it does this because worldly peace relies on merely temporal solutions. Things like education, money. politics, social agendas. But Christian peace, which is primarily spiritual, gets to the heart of the matter, which is the matter of the heart. It deals with our hearts that are desperately wicked. and sick who can know them. John 14, 27, Jesus in the upper room discourse talking to his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Jesus contrasts the peace that the world has to offer and his peace. Likewise, the Apostle Paul speaks of a kind of heartfelt peace that transcends human reasoning. We already read it, but Philippians four, verse seven, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. This is a kind of internal, spiritual peace that surpasses understanding and that is sharply contrasted with the merely worldly attempts at peace that we find today. A second thing to know about Christ's peace is that it is both vertical and horizontal. Vertically, Christ came to bring peace fundamentally and primarily with God. Romans 5, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That our fundamental problem as sinners in a fallen world is that by nature we are born enemies of God. We are born at war with God, cosmic rebels. And that's why the great blessing of the gospel, as the Christmas carol has it, is God and sinners reconciled. And when we speak of that reconciliation, it is primarily God who is reconciled to us, and then secondarily us who are reconciled to God. Because outside of Christ, we are his enemies. We are his rebels. and we need to be reconciled to Him. Now this vertical, peace with God, is both objective and subjective. Objectively, if you trust in Christ, then you are at peace with God. In principle, you are at peace with Him. glorious thing. I've heard the suggestion that atonement could suggest atonement. We are one with God. Peace by the blood of Christ's cross. But then also subjectively, as you look to Jesus, As you receive him, as you rest upon him, as you rely upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit, as you go to the promises of the scriptures, you will experience an internal peace. Not only objectively at peace with God, but you experience something of what that peace is. As our shorter catechism puts it, the benefits. which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification are assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end. When you reckon with the fact that you are justified, made right with God, that you're adopted, brought into his household, and that you are sanctified, not only set apart, but inwardly transformed, out of that, That union with Christ and all His benefits, there is an accompanying peace of conscience. Does it mean that believers won't at sometimes struggle, perhaps with assurance of salvation? Struggle with whether they belong to the Lord? But we also know that we are called to make our calling and election sure, that we pray with King David, a converted man, a regenerate man, went after he had sinned and then confessed that sin to the Lord and repented of it. What was his petition? Lord, create in me a clean heart. and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. He's praying that he can once again, not merely objectively know he's at peace with God, vertically and objectively, but he can inwardly, experientially, subjectively know God's presence. He can feel his father's pleasure in him. He can sense the smile of God upon him, the favor of God upon him, peace of conscience. Now this peace that Christ brings is fundamentally vertical, but there's also a horizontal dimension. Christ brings peace with one another. Because by nature, we tend to war with each other, even in the church, but Christ has come, not merely to make us have peace with God, but to also bring peace with one another. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples if you love. one another. It's a mark of the church that we love each other. And at this point, I wanna encourage you to beware seeking horizontal peace before you first sought vertical peace. Much of the social justice agenda in the church seeks to put the cart before the horse, and they're trying to reconcile people horizontally, forgetting that our primary need is to be reconciled vertically with God. But when you are reconciled with God, then you're also gonna wanna be reconciled with your brothers. When you experience peace with God, you're gonna want to know how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. When you're united to Christ by faith, it's then that you enjoy the communion, the fellowship of the saints. The horizontal, however important, rests on the vertical. And so once you've got a hold of the vertical, go on to the horizontal. Ephesians 2, speaking of Jews and Gentiles who, in redemptive history, were at war with each other, had enmity and alienation, envy, jealousy, bitterness, and resentment. Paul says this, for he himself is our peace, who has made both one. and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished it in his flesh, the enmity, that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. Jesus, Paul tells us, came into the world, among other things, to bring peace to Jews and Gentiles. That in redemptive history, this... This law of commandments containing ordinances speaking specifically of the ceremonial law that divided Jew and Gentile. Jesus comes to fulfill that law and thus abrogate its use and to bring Jews and Gentiles together into one body. To bring the natural olive branches together with the wild olive branches into one olive tree. Peace between warring parties. Now you might say, If Jesus is all about bringing peace into the world, then why is there still so much conflict in the church, not to mention in the world? If Christ is the Prince of Peace, why do I still see so much conflict, even in the church, even in Christian families? How do we reconcile this? Well, I've already mentioned that the peace of Christ is primarily spiritual, not temporal. You can have internal peace in the midst of external war. For instance, when Stonewall Jackson rode into battle, they said there was a fearlessness about him. even as bullets were passing over his head. And the reason for that was he had an internal peace, a peace of conscience, even as war was raging around him. That's true, but there's actually more to the story. There's something else I want to tell you about peace, the peace of God. Not just that it's spiritual, vertical, horizontal, objective, as well as subjective, but the peace of Christ though already inaugurated, is not yet consummated. This is an important concept. You're gonna come across again and again in the Bible where something is already true in principle. It's already inaugurated, and yet it's not yet consummated. For instance, we are already raised with Christ in the inner person. We are spiritually resurrected in the inner man. But our bodies, as the Lord tarries, will die and be put into a tomb in the ground, and those bodies await the great bodily, physical resurrection of the last day. Already raised up in the inner man, not yet raised up in the outer man. You've already been justified. You've already been declared righteous. You've already been forgiven. The end time verdict has already been brought into the present by faith. And yet we long for the day when we are openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, where God manifests us for who we already are, the children of the living God. Well here, we need to keep in mind this idea of already inaugurated, not yet consummated. Jesus himself says to expect ongoing physical warfare in this age. What did Jesus say in the Olivet Discourse? He said, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Certain kinds of conflict are going to continue until his second coming in glory. And it can be tempting for us to want to, as theologians say, immunitize the eschaton. You want to take the final state and read it into the present evil age. And we think that somehow we can end poverty when Jesus told us the poor will always be with you. We think we can make the world safe for democracy when Jesus says this age will be characterized by wars and rumors of wars unto the ends. We have to, even as we work for peace, realize that a full and final and lasting peace awaits the last day, when the Prince of Peace comes on the clouds of glory. That's the kind of peace that Christ brings. It's spiritual, primarily, vertical, and horizontal, objective and subjective, already inaugurated, not yet consummated. Well, third and final question. How is Jesus the Prince of Peace? How is Jesus the Prince of Peace described in Isaiah 9-6? 700 years before Jesus came into the world, Isaiah told us what he would be like, and among other titles, he is the Prince of Peace. Matthew Henry says he is the prince of peace. As a king, he preserves the peace, commands peace, nay, he creates peace in his kingdom. He is our peace, and it is his peace that both keeps the hearts of his people and rules in them. He is not only a peaceable prince and his reign peaceable, but he is the author and giver of all good. all that peace which is the present and future bliss of his subjects. We can break down Matthew Henry's description of the significance of this title under three subheadings. Jesus' person, his work, and his message. First of all, Jesus' person, as the Prince of Peace, we can say more than that, not only is he the Prince of Peace, Jesus is our peace. Paul says that in Ephesians 2. Jesus is the peace of God in the flesh. He is God's peace with a face. Jesus is God's personal peace. Sometimes we talk about grace or peace as if they're simply abstract concepts. But when the Bible comes to us, it speaks to us of the peace of Christ. It speaks to us of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the grace of God. Jesus is the peace of God. He himself is our peace in his person. More than that, when we think about his work, we can talk about the price of this peace. This peace was made on very costly terms. The price of peace is blood. Christ obtained peace by going to war. Jesus is the fulfillment both of David's warfare and of Solomon's reign of serenity. Jesus fulfills both of them because he goes to war like David and he makes peace like Solomon. He establishes peace on the basis of his blood because it's Jesus' blood that removes the enmity between God and sinners. His blood pays the price of peace. And in his blood, he established a kingdom. Look at verse seven of our text. After he is spoken of as the Prince of Peace, the Bible says, of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. A kingdom. established in everlasting, never-ending peace. Here is one greater than Melchizedek, the king of Salem. literally the king of peace. Here is one greater than Solomon, who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, heralding peace. Here is one born a child, and yet a king, the prince of peace, not only in his person, but in his crosswork. And finally, we can speak of Jesus' message. as a message of peace. Paul tells us that he preached peace to those who were far off and to those who were near. When Jesus came into the world, he preached peace in his earthly ministry. And after he died and was buried and rose again and ascended and sat down and intercedes for us, and poured out the Holy Spirit upon us, and then through his apostolic band, even up until today, through the lips of human ministers, Christ continues to proclaim, to herald a message of peace. that by faith in Christ, we can be at peace with God, that in the love infused by the Spirit of Christ, empowered by the Spirit of Christ, we can be at peace with one another. It's a message of peace. It was the message on the lips of the angels when they said to the shepherds, peace. on earth, goodwill toward men. The Romans established something called the Pax Romana, which was an extended period of relative serenity in the Roman Empire. Well, Jesus has come to establish an even greater rule and reign marked by peace. Well, how can we take all of this, whether our need for peace, the kind of peace that Christ has come to bring us, and the unique ways in which he is truly a prince of peace. How can we apply that to our lives? Well, I wanna end with three applications of this title to us. First, beware false appeals to peace. Beware false appeals to peace. Congregation, true peace. Biblical peace never comes at the expense of purity or truth. In fact, there's one sense in which the gospel of peace brings division in this life. The gospel of peace divides believers from unbelievers. When the gospel of peace is preached, like on Mars Hill, you have some who believe, you have some who want to know more, and you have some who reject it. But the gospel of peace discriminates. differentiates, divides, and distinguishes. Indeed, Jesus said, do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Yes, in one sense, of course he brought peace. He made peace, he is peace, he preached peace. But the gospel of peace also brings a sword, a spiritual saber that divides between belief and unbelief, even in the midst of the church. The Lord said, beware those who have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people, slightly saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Beware false appeals to peace. Often it is a false flag operation designed to seek peace at any cost. Any price and the victim is usually the purity of God's people and truth itself. Beware such appeals. A second application, that is be reconciled. Be reconciled. That's what Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 5 and 6. Be reconciled to God. That's the message of ambassadors from the courts of King Jesus. I have come with a message, and the message is Jesus is king. Christ is Lord, and so you need to put down your arms, and you need to lift the white flag of surrender, and you need to bow the knee to King Jesus and submit to his Lordship. I have a royal message of kingly victory that Jesus has made peace, and so you need to lay down your arms. Be reconciled to God. As the hymn writer puts it, bow the knee. Bow the knee, he is king of all the ages, bow the knee. God alone on his throne, see him high and lifted up, and bow the knee. Kneel before him, all adore him, as you live to love him more, bow the knee. be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. And what this means, when you lay down your arms and you stop fighting him, like Paul, you stop kicking against the pricks. You stop resisting the Holy Spirit as the apostles said, the Jews of Jesus' day did. When you lay down your arms and you wave the white flag of surrender and you bow the knee to the king, what you are doing is finding rest with God. Some of you perhaps tonight are running. You're running from your problems. You're running from people. You're running from God. And the hound of heaven is chasing you. And God, this is the marvelous thing about God, is that he in love will not let his children go. He won't let them go. Though they go in a far country, though they spend their father's wealth on prostitutes, yet God is a pursuing God. He is a loving God. And as a hound of heaven, he comes after us, and he brings us back from the broad way, back to the narrow way, from the road that leads to perdition to the road that leads to heaven. God, in his love, even as the angels did with Lot in the city of Sodom that was gonna be incinerated from fire from heaven, they laid their hands on Lot, and as it were, pulled him out of the city. That's the love of God, a love that actually saves sinners, a love that is efficacious, a love that is sacrificial, a love that goes after us and finds us, even in the miry pit, even in the clay, even in the darkest of places, that reaches down. and picks us back up. A God that meets us where we are but doesn't leave us where we are. A God who saves us. A God who sent his son to die for us, to rise again for us. That's the kind of God that we serve. And so when you are reconciled to God, you find rest with him. Augustine said our hearts are restless until they find their rest in the Lord. Maybe you know what that's like. Maybe tonight you're restless. You've tried a million things. You're like the woman who's gone to a thousand different physicians, and you're worse off than before. You've tried this medication and that medication. You've tried this self-help book or that system. It's always left you wanting. Well, perhaps the reason is that you need, even for the first time, to be reconciled with God, to receive and rest upon Jesus Christ, the King of never-ending peace. And do we not get a glimpse of this every Sabbath day? I think of the Israelites who, for 430 years, were in bondage, in chains. They were slaves, generation upon generation, 400 plus years. And then, we don't often think about it, but after being delivered through the exodus and the Passover blood and across the wilderness to the Red Sea, through the Sea of Reeds with walls of water on either side, on the other side, traveling to a mountain, even Mount Sinai, and when Moses proclaims the law of God from the tablets of stone with thunder and a trumpet. What's the fourth commandment? Remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it you shall not do any work. Either your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, your ox, your donkey. It's a day of rest. In fact, the word Sabbath means cessation of work. And I think in a 20th, 21st century mindset, we find ways to make that an onerous command. But think of it for the perspective of a people who have been slaves, not just their whole lives, but all living memory, 430 years of slavery. And then, and I don't want to put this too crassly, but I do want to put it provocatively, God says, You get a day off. You've been slaves your whole life, but I've delivered you from your slave masters, and now I am inviting you. Come and experience rest. peace, cessation of work, and not just cessation of work, but the fullness of my presence. You can call my Sabbath a delight, and you can ride on the high hills of the earth, and you can feed on the heritage of Jacob, and I'm gonna lift you up on eagles' wings. I'm gonna bring you to myself, and you can enter into my courts and experience the refreshment of a day of rest in the house of God. Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It's a gift of God to a once enslaved people. And we need to recapture that view of the Sabbath, because it helps us understand what it means to be reconciled with God, is that not only do you lay down your arms, but you can finally rest in the arms of Jesus. Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden. And Jesus said, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon me, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. You find freedom in submission to Christ. You find rest under the shadow of the Almighty. Be reconciled with God, and having been reconciled with God, be reconciled to one another. United to Christ, enjoy the fellowship of the saints. Blessed, Jesus says, are the peacemakers, for they shall become called sons of God. Pursue peace with all people. Start at home, start in the church. I wanna speak to the covenant children for a moment. I wonder, on the ride here, how much bickering was there? How much complaining was there? How much fighting was there? This past week, how many times did you provoke your brother or your sister? And think about this, if your next door neighbors, who are not Christians perhaps, were to come into your home and see you fighting with your brothers and sisters and backtalking your parents, They might wonder, well, this is what a Christian home is like. I don't know if I wanna be in a Christian home. We need to model for people what the gospel looks like, because we've been reconciled with God, and in principle, we're reconciled with one another, and so let's live in peace with all men, but especially in the household of faith. It's good and it's pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity, so I wanna encourage the covenant children Let's not only be reconciled with God, let's be reconciled to each other. So let's start in our homes and let's start in the church. Let's be a model of the gospel. Let's be a picture of the gospel. This is what Jesus prayed for in the same upper room where Jesus said, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives to you, my peace I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled. Not to let them be afraid. In that same prayer, Jesus prayed that we would be one, even as God is one. That we would have fellowship with one another, even as the Father and the Son have fellowship with one another, together with the Holy Spirit. Let's be reconciled to one another. And then final application. This brings us full circle. Remember what E.J. Young said about this five title lists, be comforted and strengthened, especially in this coming year. He said this morning we don't know what 2025 is going to bring. That's why we need the wisdom and knowledge of God to be the stability of our times, the strength of salvation. The fear of the Lord is his treasure. We need to be stabilized by truth. And likewise, I want you to be comforted and encouraged by this precious title of our Lord Jesus. That whatever else is going on in your life in 2025, by faith, you can have peace with God now. You can have an internal peace while the bullets are whizzing past you. And you can experience, with hope, the full and final peace in the resurrection. Because it's true. As Joel Beeky likes to say, there's a difference between the way things should be and the way things are, but also in the way that things will be one day. And I want to end on that note of hope, that as we experience Christ's peace now, let's also look forward to a day to come, a day of shalom, where there's not merely a ceasefire, but a lasting peace. not merely the cessation of war, but the flowering of prosperity. In that day, when Jesus comes again in the clouds of heaven, we have this assurance from the Bible. He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, amen.